Collaboration

Until recently, your Google Drive has been a means to achieve collaboration through the other Google tools but Team Drives do allow for easier collaboration because they allow you to set permissions for the whole team drive, rather than having to do it for each document.

My advice? Try not to look in your drive too much. Just shove everything in there and then use another interface like a Google Site or Google Classroom to access everything easily and elegantly.

You could spend ages creating a complex system of sub-folders, even sub-sub-folders...ad infinitum but you can be sure one of your team will come along and mess up your system. So, just dump everything in the drive and use the search to find it. Or learn to love the Quick Access bar - that's an amazing tool that's going to get better and better.

'Google Meet' is the latest incarnation of a video conferencing tool.

It's easy to use and you don't need to learn anything. It integrates perfectly with your calendar, your Gmail, your Google Classroom.

That's it, really. Again, it just works with no fuss or hassle.

Try it! Your pupils will love it!

Perhaps the best designed software tool I've ever seen!

It's simple to use, it looks as if it doesn't do very much and yet it's enormously powerful.

It is helping to transform education.

Enough said!

We don't always think of Sites as a collaborative tool - but we should.

Many of us think of a website as a huge undertaking that requires a team of nerds and hours of effort.

Such sites exist, of course. Google Sites, though, can be created in moments without any prior training or explanation. Even young children can create them almost without help.

And they are a great way of sharing work in a class. They don't have to last for ever. Don't worry about making them and getting rid of them when their job is done.

Do make sure you're using the new sites (for which you need to be using Chrome). The 'classic' Sites is much more difficult to use and will soon be phased out by Google.